Nigel Farage's vetting boasts in tatters as Reform UK suspends two candidates in two days

Nigel Farage’s promise to subject Reform UK’s local election hopefuls to the “highest standard” of vetting was in tatters last night after the party was forced to suspend two candidates in as many days.

A strong performance in May’s local elections is crucial if Mr Farage is to prove the party’s polling boost is more than just hype.

"We've been vetting, I bet, to a standard that no other party has ever done before for local council elections,” Mr Farage boasted to GB News last month.

But last night the party suspended Buckinghamshire candidate Miriam Thomas, after the Sunday identified offensive social media posts.

It came just a day after Reform distanced itself from Steven Hartley, who was standing for the party in Oxfordshire after it emerged he had defended vile Jimmy Savile.

Hartley posted on social media in 2022 that Savile was an “innocent man” and a “working class hero” - and even suggested the paedophile DJ was his “role model”.

And confronted about the posts, Hartley suggested he had simply not told Reform UK about his account - which was under his name.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Mirror learned of another candidate, Ms Thomas, who has repeatedly posted on that Islam is a “false religion”.

She has also posted an image online claiming Muslim people were trying to “take control” of the UK and impose sharia law.

Another image depicted Islam as a snake, devouring a person feeding it from a bottle.

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After alerting the party to the posts, a Reform UK spokesman said: “Ms Thomas has been suspended as a member and is now not a Reform UK candidate.

“We have subsequently withdrawn all support for her candidacy."

After his suspension, Hartley told the : “I may have forgotten to tell them about my Twitter [X] account, which I use sporadically when I just want to vent.

"I understand Reform have got to be careful."

But he stuck by his defence of Savile.

“I stand by my claims that Jimmy Savile was a working-class hero,” he told the Oxford Mail.

“These allegations were never proven and really how it came out after his death was the worst thing.”